Why Does God Discipline Believers But Not Unbelievers?
It can be confusing and feel unfair when God disciplines believers for their sins but allows unbelievers sometimes to escape the consequences they deserve. Yet, God's intention and motive for dealing differently with each group of people is always just and right, even when we do not understand them.
For starters, believers are God's children who were grafted into His family when they repented of their sins and trusted Jesus for their salvation. However, unbelievers do not qualify as His children because they have not been redeemed. Therefore, God deals with His children differently than those outside His family.
As a good Father, God disciplines His children when they sin. His desire is not to punish them for punishment's sake but teach them not to sin and help them produce a harvest of righteousness and peace (Hebrews 12:11; Colossians 1:10-12). God also uses disciplinary measures to conform believers into the image and likeness of Jesus and prepare them for heaven (Romans 8:28-30).
On the flip side, unbelievers are bound by sin and are rebellious toward God. Therefore, God deals with them to facilitate their repentance and salvation using His absolute knowledge of what it will take to get them there. The Bible says in 2 Peter 3:9, "The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance." For this reason, God's actions toward unbelievers may exhibit a lot of mercy and grace rather than justice and consequences on this side of eternity.
Despite God's desire for unbelievers to be saved, sin always comes with consequences. Therefore, if God sovereignly postpones unbelievers' chastening for their sins and extends grace and mercy instead, He has appointed a day in eternity for His righteous and swift judgment to be executed on all who did not repent and accept His gifts of forgiveness and salvation.
Considering God's goodness and grace, we, as believers, should always be mindful that nobody would fare well if God withheld His mercy and grace and gave everyone what they deserved—including us. The fact that God saved us, appointed us to escape His judgment, granted us eternal life, and lovingly disciplines us as His children are all examples of His undeserved mercy and grace. Therefore, we should not worry about what God does or does not do in others' lives but focus on making godly choices to minimize the discipline we ourselves receive. Lastly, we must pray for unbelievers, asking Jesus to lead them to repentance and salvation.
P.S. For further study on this subject, consider and meditate upon the following verses:
Romans 9:20-24-- “But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use? What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory— even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?”
Romans 9:14-15-- “What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
Isaiah 45:9-- “Woe to those who quarrel with their Maker, those who are nothing but potsherds among the potsherds on the ground. Does the clay say to the potter, ‘What are you making?’ Does your work say, ‘The potter has no hands’?
Isaiah 55:8-9-- “‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,’ says the Lord. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.’”
